of the two branches was regarded by the ancients as the true Himera; but in either case that river has a course of above from north to south, and its sources are not more than from the north coast of the island. Hence Polybius and Livy's statement that the Himera nearly divides the whole of Sicily into two parts, is accurate. But it is evidently this circumstance, coupled with the fact that there was another river of the same name flowing into the Tyrrhenian Sea, which gave rise to the fable above noticed. Strabo, who does not mention the southern Himera, applies (evidently by mistake) very nearly the same words as Polybius to the northern river of the name. Ptolemy correctly places the mouth of the southern Himera to the east of Agrigento; he is the only one of the geographers who mentions both rivers of the name. Diodorus mentions the brackish quality of the waters of the Himera, which gives rise to its modern name of Fiume Salso: this is caused by the junction of a small stream near Caltanisetta, that flows from the salt mines in that vicinity. Solinus erroneously ascribes this quality to the northern Himera; while Vitruvius rightly attributes it to the southern river only. According to Diodorus Siculus after a series of conflicts between the Siculi and the Sicani in prehistoric times, the River Salso was made the boundary between their respective territories, the Siculi dwelling to its east, the Sicani to its west. In 446 BCE, the Agrigentines were defeated by the Syracusans at the river. The river formed the eastern edge of the Carthaginian territory in Sicily from the treaty with Dionysius I in 374 BCE until it was shifted west to the Platani in 339 BCE as a result of the treaty with Timoleon. In 311 BCE, the Carthaginians won a great victory over Agathocles, the Tyrant of Syracuse near the mouth of the river, where the Carthaginians had occupied the hill of Ecnomus, while Agathocles was encamped on the east bank. Around 280 BCE, the king of Agrigento, Phintias, founded a city at the mouth of the Salso, which he named Phintias after himself, requiring all the inhabitants of Gela to relocate there. During the Second Punic War, Carthage and Hieronymus of Syracuse, agreed to divide the whole of Sicily between them, so the river Himera (Salso) would have again been